WD My Passport 6TB Portable External HDD - Black

For context I haven't touched a Seagate in over a decade, but needed some media storage and decided to buy two FireCuda drives and this Western Digital. To be fair, I knew not to expect much of the Seagates, but also expected things to have improved over the past 10 years. Marketed as gaming storage drives, perfect, storage, don't need performance, just need a place to store data, right? Wrong. The write speed of the FireCuda drives were god awful. Running winsat, I conducted a test of 2x 7 year old MyBook drives resulting in 120MB/s read and write. Next I tested the first FireCuda drive... 100MB/s read, 5.5MB/s write. 5.5MB/s!! Surely...view more For context I haven't touched a Seagate in over a decade, but needed some media storage and decided to buy two FireCuda drives and this Western Digital. To be fair, I knew not to expect much of the Seagates, but also expected things to have improved over the past 10 years. Marketed as gaming storage drives, perfect, storage, don't need performance, just need a place to store data, right? Wrong. The write speed of the FireCuda drives were god awful. Running winsat, I conducted a test of 2x 7 year old MyBook drives resulting in 120MB/s read and write. Next I tested the first FireCuda drive... 100MB/s read, 5.5MB/s write. 5.5MB/s!! Surely not, I thought to myself as I ran the test again... same result. I bought two, the Luke version and the Black Panther version, so I plugged the other in and conducted the same test... same result. In the same order I also purchased this WD Elements SE... 243MB/s Read, 116MB/s Write. TL;DR - Invest your money in Western Digital (WD), always, keep away from Seagate.

The drive and the service from PB Tech are both exceptional. For those of you considering the drive I highly recommend BUT ... be aware that the drive I received is pre-formatted for the Windows file system. If you plug-and-play on a Mac and try to copy\move files to the WD dribve it isn't going to work!! You will need to reformat the drive. It's quick and easy using the "Dik Utility" app that comes with your mac. Just open Disk utility. select the WD drive and format it for "MAC OS EXTENDED (JOURNALED)" if you only intend to use the drive in a Mac environment. If you wish to use the drive with both Mac AND Windows then select "ExFAT" and...view more The drive and the service from PB Tech are both exceptional. For those of you considering the drive I highly recommend BUT ... be aware that the drive I received is pre-formatted for the Windows file system. If you plug-and-play on a Mac and try to copy\move files to the WD dribve it isn't going to work!! You will need to reformat the drive. It's quick and easy using the "Dik Utility" app that comes with your mac. Just open Disk utility. select the WD drive and format it for "MAC OS EXTENDED (JOURNALED)" if you only intend to use the drive in a Mac environment. If you wish to use the drive with both Mac AND Windows then select "ExFAT" and then hit erase and let disk utility do its work. Hope that helps. Best wishes, David

Competitive price: Yes
Product functioned as promised: Yes
Product met all my requirements: Yes
Build quality: Excellent
Promptness of service: Very Good
Would recommend product to others?: Yes
Would recommend reseller to others?: Yes Competitive price: Yes
Product functioned as promised: Yes
Product met all my requirements: Yes
Build quality: Excellent
Promptness of service: Very Good
Would recommend product to others?: Yes
Would recommend reseller to others?: Yes

Does what it says on the tin. Make sure you connect it to a USB 3.0 port (for maximum read/write speeds), format it correctly, and you're good to go. Does what it says on the tin. Make sure you connect it to a USB 3.0 port (for maximum read/write speeds), format it correctly, and you're good to go.

I have bought 3 of these already (this is the 4th) and they just do the job and great insurance if you ever lose your data and need to restore. Fortunately I haven't to date but have peace of mind. I have bought 3 of these already (this is the 4th) and they just do the job and great insurance if you ever lose your data and need to restore. Fortunately I haven't to date but have peace of mind.

Works as expected. Never had problems with WD hard drives. Works as expected. Never had problems with WD hard drives.

This drive works great. Great amount of storage size for the price. Good transfer rates. I needed to move many large files to clear space on my main drives and this did the trick. This drive works great. Great amount of storage size for the price. Good transfer rates. I needed to move many large files to clear space on my main drives and this did the trick.

WD have always been compact, robust and fast drives and this one doesn't disappoint either, hence adding yet another one to my collection. Great value for money.

The only let down was the software that came with it. Most Mac and PCS now have their own disk utility software and the supplied did not really add much to it. Easy to install and pretty easy to remove. It was good that you were given the option to install or not. If you do use the software, part of it insists on running on start up (on a Mac) which cannot be turned off , but that just might be Macs.

Overall would definitely buy again. WD have always been compact, robust and fast drives and this one doesn't disappoint either, hence adding yet another one to my collection. Great value for money.

The only let down was the software that came with it. Most Mac and PCS now have their own disk utility software and the supplied did not really add much to it. Easy to install and pretty easy to remove. It was good that you were given the option to install or not. If you do use the software, part of it insists on running on start up (on a Mac) which cannot be turned off , but that just might be Macs.

Overall would definitely buy again.

very happy with quality and it is quite light too very happy with quality and it is quite light too

These name brand external drives are bad news. Why? Because most of them incorporate the USB port and drive electronics in the same circuit board. And why is this bad? Because if the any of the electroincs become defective or dies ALL is lost. No way to recover data - well there is but $$$. IFIXIT site is full of people having problems with these proprietary external drives.

The wiser choice is to buy the two componenrts seperately. If the drive enclosure electronics die, for what ever reason, you just take the drive out and put it in another one or a computer and data is all safe. Also, the drive can later be easily upgraded to a lar...view more These name brand external drives are bad news. Why? Because most of them incorporate the USB port and drive electronics in the same circuit board. And why is this bad? Because if the any of the electroincs become defective or dies ALL is lost. No way to recover data - well there is but $$$. IFIXIT site is full of people having problems with these proprietary external drives.

The wiser choice is to buy the two componenrts seperately. If the drive enclosure electronics die, for what ever reason, you just take the drive out and put it in another one or a computer and data is all safe. Also, the drive can later be easily upgraded to a larger capacity and/or SSD. A good chice is the ADATA ED600 - no scews, etc for fast change-over.. IFIXIT site is full of people having problems with these proprietary external drives. Over 7 years I have never personally nor seen any one on the IFIXIT site have a problem with the separate enclosure and drive

Plugged it in and it worked, what more could you want? Plugged it in and it worked, what more could you want?

does what it should. been using WD for a decade and havent encountered any problem. does what it should. been using WD for a decade and havent encountered any problem.

By: GemarTech 04/01/25